Draft: please do not quote without permission

VLADIMIR KULI
Florida Atlantic University

CONSTRUCTIVISM REVIVED:
Vjenceslav Richter and the Legacy of the Avant-Garde in Socialist Yugoslavia

The 1964 XIII Triennale in Milan was a source of considerable controversy. In contrast
to the tone intended by the general theme of Free Time or Leisure, critics described the
event as infernal kitsch and the total sell out of all creative ideas.1 This concerned in
particular the introductory section curated by Umberto Eco and Vittorio Gregotti, who attempted
to provide an architectural interpretation of Ecos concept of open work through an openended installation of text, images, and kaleidoscopic reflective surfaces. But instead of finding a
way out of the increasingly obvious crisis of modernism, the exhibition puzzled both the
audience and the critics with an overload of sensory inputs and the abandonment of the
traditional notions of architectural form and tectonics. Between the Eco and Gregottis media
saturation and the absolute banality of some of the international displays, the small Pavilion of
Yugoslavia was one of the few that the critics singled as successful.2 Designed by the Croatian
architect, artist, designer, and theorist Vjenceslav Richter, the pavilion was ultimately awarded a
Gold Medal, one of the many international awards that Richter won in his multifaceted career.
Despite general approval, however, the reception of the Yugoslav pavilion was
surprisingly sparse. Critics typically described it as interesting, but stopped short of providing
any further interpretation. Most conspicuously, they completely ignored its content, something
that they regularly summarized in the case of other national pavilions. The overlooked content,
however, was of paramount significance. It worked synergistically with architecture to produce
a synthetic political message about the special Yugoslav brand of socialism, based on the system
of workers self-management. Initiated in 1950 after the countrys sensational break from the
Soviet bloc and based on a new, allegedly more authentic reading of Marx, self-management was

Triennale di Milano, in Baumeister 61 (10/1964): 1126.

Paolo Portoghesi, Lanticatalogo della XIII Triennale di Milano, in Architettura; Chronache e storia 10, no. 109
(November 1964): 453.
2

an experiment in radical democracy aimed at eradicating all alienation and achieving ultimate
human freedom, thus reclaiming socialisms avant-garde status. It was free time in the selfmanaged communities that was the chief content of the Yugoslav exhibition in Milan and it was
self-management for which Richters transparent, flexible, and non-hierarchical space served as
an inspired metaphor. The resonance between form and content, however, was completely lost
on foreign audiences. The only political connotation that crept into their interpretations was the
fact that Yugoslavia was the sole socialist state participating at the show in the company of
Western liberal democracies, thus buttressing the countrys already widely known independence
from the Soviet tutelage.
The situation was in no way new. At least at two large international exhibitions before
the Triennale, Yugoslavia was represented by the same formula: self-management in content +
Richters neo-avant-garde aesthetics in form: first at EXPO 58 in Brussels and then at the 1961
International Labor Exhibition in Turin. In all three instances, as well as in a number of other
projects conceived or realized in the fifteen years after World War II, Richter directly built onto
the tradition of historical avant-gardes, especially Constructivism, linking them further with the
neo-avant-gardes and the techno-utopias of his own period. What was unusual about such
linkage, however, was that it maintained the vital connection between the avant-garde and a
revolutionary socialist project at a time when such connection was elsewhere almost extinct,
simultaneously updating the avant-garde repertoire for the postwar period. The reception of
Richters work abroad, however, highlighted its aesthetic success, while reducing its political
meanings to a signifier of Yugoslavias independence from the Soviet Union, the same operation
that depoliticized much of the avant-garde art for capitalist consumption after World War II. It is
such linkages and discrepancies that I explore in this paper.

Vjenceslav Richter commenced his studies of architecture in 1937 in Zagreb, at the time
when that city was a hotbed of functionalism, thanks to a large number of architects educated
abroad, especially in German-speaking lands. Although most of these architects depended on
typical bourgeois commissions, it was generally assumed that functionalism was associated with
progressive politics and many prominent figures, like the leading architect Drago Ibler, were
2

indeed involved in left-wing associations. The connection to the international avant-garde

movements was also alive since the early 1920s, first established through the journal Zenit.
Published in Zagreb and Belgrade 1921-26, Zenit collaborated with a broad range of avant-garde
figures from around Europe, especially Dadaists and Constructivists. The connection with the
Soviet Union was particularly strong and the journals contributors included Wassily Kandinski,
Alexander Blok, and Vladimir Tatlin, whose Monument to the Third International was shown on
the cover in 1922.3
Richter himself was politically active as a student and by 1939 he joined the Association
of the Communist Youth of Yugoslavia, an illegal organization under the auspices of the
Communist Party. The outbreak of the war interrupted his studies of architecture and he
immediately joined the Communist-organized resistance. He operated an illegal printing shop
outside of Zagreb before being discovered by the police, wounded in an altercation, arrested, and
interned in a camp in Vienna. Active participation in the resistance secured him an unshakeable
political reputation after the Communist Party of Yugoslavia took complete control of the
country at the end of World War II.
Thanks to such reputation, Richter acquired the commissions for the various exhibition
pavilions in Yugoslavia and abroad while still a student at the University of Zagreb in the late
1940s. For these commissions, he often collaborated with his colleagues, artists Ivan Picelj and
Aleksandar Srnec, thus crossing the boundaries between architecture and art from the very
beginning of his career. At a time when the regime firmly strove to impose Socialist Realism as
the exclusive paradigm of socialist creativity, these projects were striking not only for eschewing
the pathos typical of the doctrine, but also for incorporating explicit references to the interwar
avant-garde. These included the Constructivist reduction of the design language to floating
linear and planar elements and exposed structure, but also biomorphic shapes reminiscent of
Surrealism, and elements perhaps reminiscent of Frederick Kiesler. Indeed, Richter repeatedly
identified Constructivism, the Bauhaus, and artists like Kurt Schwitters as major influences. The
origins of this interest were diverse and multi-fold. The memories of the interwar avant-garde
were still very much alive in Zagreb, which had been well-connected to the international context

The full content of Zenit is available on-line at:

http://www.wdl.org/en/item/2330/zoom/#group=1&page=1&zoom=0.9511741506676542&centerX=0.4949697024
547432&centerY=0.9721050006208951.

before the war.4 Richters professor and mentor, Zdenko Strii, likely played an important
influence in this respect: a prominent prewar modernist educated in Dresden with Hans Poelzig,
he had famously won the competition for the Kharkiv Opera House in 1930, one of the last highprofile international competitions organized in the Soviet Union before the shift to Socialist
Realism.5 But what certainly helped Richter expand his horizons was also the fact that his work
on exhibition pavilions allowed him to travel to the West long before it was possible for ordinary
Yugoslavs, and thus to acquire first-hand information on latest foreign architecture and design.6
For example, during a trip to Chicago in 1950, while working on a Yugoslav pavilion there, he
made a point of paying multiple visits to Lszl Moholy-Nagys Institute of Design at the Illinois
Institute of Technology, a successor to the New Bauhaus that Moholy-Nagy had founded upon
his arrival in the United States in 1937.7
The design for the 1950 exhibition Freeway (in collaboration with Picelj, Srnec and
architect Zvonimir Radi) was exemplary both as a high-profile commission and as a striking
example of modern design. The show celebrated one of the socialist states top projects, the
construction of the first modern highway in the country. Named the Freeway of Brotherhood
and Unity, the road connected Yugoslavias two largest cities, Belgrade and Zagreb, which both
hosted the exhibition. Mounted on panels of various sizes, the displayed images floated freely in
space, supported by exposed light structure. The walls behind were painted with primary colors
in geometrical patterns, filled in with ideological symbols and the abstracted representations of
signifiers of progress: radio transmitters, cranes, machines, etc. Intense dynamism permeated the
design. This was the kind of three-dimensional montagebringing together communist
ideology, passionate optimism and faith in progress, and avant-garde design languagethat had
not been seen since the demise of Russian Constructivism in the early 1930s, a message that,
arguably, powerfully resonated with the contemporaneous political events. Namely, following
its break with the Soviet Union two years prior, in was exactly in 1950 that Yugoslavias
Communist leadership began a series of thorough political and economic reforms, moving away
from the Stalinist dogma and reinventing socialism based on a new interpretation of authentic
Marxism-Leninism. The result was the invention of workers self-management, a system

Croatian architects were particularly well informed of latest avant-garde achievements, since many of them studied
with famous modernists in Austria and Germany, and the Yugoslav branch of CIAM (Congrs International
dArchitecture Moderne) was based in Zagreb under the leadership of Drago Ibler.
5
Marjan Susovski, Richter (Zagreb: Muzej suvremene umjetnosti, 2003)), 15.
6
These included the fairs in Stockholm (1949), Vienna (1949), Hannover (1950), Paris (1950), Chicago (1950), etc.
7
Susovski, Richter, 17.

aimed at a gradual withering away of the state and its replacement with participatory
democracy both at the workplace and in civic life. If the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was
about to change its name to the League of Communists to evoke Marxs original Communist
League of 1848 and thus claim the legacy of authentic Communism, Richters evocations of
Constructivism similarly claimed the legacy of the original art of the October Revolution. This
realignment of artistic and political avant-gardes was no coincidence for Richter, who saw his
artistic activities as part of his political commitment and considered socialism as a precondition
for a general transformation of our image of the world.8
Despite its political potential, this message was not received without opposition from
conservative forces and its acceptance required concerted activist efforts, which would color
much of Richters career. Such efforts were most significantly formalized through EXAT 51
(Eksperimentalni atelierExperimental Studio), Yugoslavias first successful independent
group of artists after World War II.9 Richter was the groups co-founder and chief ideologue.
He wrote its Manifesto, arguing for a synthesis of visual arts in the creation of totally designed
environments based on abstraction and continuous experimentation, thus explicitly building on
the traditions of the progressive movements from the interwar period.10 And while the Manifesto
was somewhat defensive in its language, EXATs members would soon extend an open
challenge to the still entrenched conservatism, both through their theoretical advocacy and
through their practical activities. Throughout the 1950s, Richter was at the forefront of such
activist efforts, organizing public debates and engaging in polemics with the cultural
establishment.11 At the same time, his theoretical calls for a synthesis of visual arts were
materialized in his pioneering work in the field of interior and product design. From 1950 to
1954, he was the Chair of the Department of Architecture and Design at the short-lived Academy
of Applied Arts in Zagreb, while he also continued to practice exhibition, interior, stage-set, and

In Richters view, artists were supposed to be leaders in the construction of socialism, rather than to merely follow,
or retreat from, the realities of social life. Such a position continued the socially minded concerns of the interwar
avant-garde, radically denying the separation of visual media and arguing for a continuity in the design of human
environments, from the smallest scale of individual objects to the largest scale of the city. This position is perhaps
best exemplified by his 1964 book on synthurbanism (synthetic urbanism), which explicitly stated the connection
between socialism and continuity in the design of human environments, from the smallest scale of individual objects
to the largest scale of the city; see: Vjenceslav Richter, Sinturbanizam (Zagreb: Mladost, 1964).
9
On EXAT, see: Jea Denegri and elimir Koevi, EXAT 51: 1951-1956 (Zagreb: Galerija Nova, 1979).
10
For an English translation of the Manifesto, see: Exat 51: Manifesto, in: Miko uvakovi and Dubravka uri,
eds., Impossible Histories (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2003), 539.
11
For example, Richter responded to Socialist Realist critic Grgo Gamulin, who criticized modernisms captive
forms, with a text entitled Captive Theories. See: Vjenceslav Richter, Zarobljene teorije, Krugovi, no. 1
(1952): 84-91.

product design, consistently bringing together the various modes of visual arts into a unified
expression. After the Academy was dissolved, Richter escaped joining an existing architectural
office and instead established his own practice, while continuing to receive high-profile
commissions.
Richters most publicized architectural representation of Yugoslav socialismand one of
the pinnacles of his efforts to achieve a synthetically designed environmentwas the highly
praised national pavilion at the 1958 Universal and International Exposition in Brussels. 12 He
acquired the commission at a rather uninspired national competition in 1956 with a spectacular
proposal that suspended the whole building from a central cable-stayed mast. The concept, I
argue, revealed Richters indebtedness to Constructivism; suffice it to remember Ivan
Leonidovs project for the Lenin Library in Moscow or Hannes Meyers Petersschule in Basel.
At the same time, however, it also evoked the Skylon built for the Festival of Britain a few
years before, thus confirming Richters keen awareness of the need for spectacle at a show like
EXPO. The proposal thus oscillated between the heroism of interwar avant-garde and the
emergent postwar society of the spectacle, striking an unlikely middle ground between
different periods and ideological motivations. The engineers in charge of calculating the
structure, however, were less enamored of the suspension concept. Richter fought tooth and nail
to keep the integrity of his proposal and at one point even hired an independent engineer to prove
its structural viability; but the national Commissar was undeterred and the pavilion was built on
twelve conventional columns. Instead, Richter designed an ingenious tensile column erected in
front of the pavilion to serve as a visual marker.
Raised on thin steel columns, the pavilions weightless interlocking volumes appeared to
float above a marble-paved plaza, creating a dynamic cascade of flowing spaces with no barriers
between the exterior and interior. At the same time, the architecture gave clear spatial
articulation to Yugoslavias newly-formulated ideology. One entered the pavilion across an
elegant marble-paved plaza, to go either half a floor downstairs, to the sunken Gallery of
Economy, or half a floor upstairs, to the Gallery of State and Social Organization. From the
latter, another half-level up, one accessed the Gallery of Art directly above the entry plaza, and
from there the final Gallery of Tourism. This organizationthe economy firmly anchored to the
ground, the rest floating above itmade the Marxist tropes of social basis and
12

For a detailed account of the concept and realization of the Brussels pavilion, see my article An Avant-Garde
Architecture for an Avant-Garde Socialism: Yugoslavia at EXPO 58, in: Journal of Contemporary History 46, no.
1 (January 2012): 161-184.

superstructure materially tangible. At the same time, there were no doors anywhere: the
pavilion was completely open, which the visitors readily interpreted as the signifier of
Yugoslavias openness to international collaboration. Most explicitly, the central Gallery of
State and Social Organization revolved around the revived avant-garde spirit of Yugoslav
socialism. The concluding sentence of the recently adopted Program of the League of
Communists of Yugoslavia was prominently exhibited: Nothing that has been created so far
should be so sacred that it cannot be overcome, that it cannot be replaced with something more
progressive, more liberated, and more humane. Richter gave these statements clear visual
articulation, while avoiding any explicit symbols and standard rhetorical clichs associated with
communism.
Part of the buildings success lay in the fact that, compared to the overcrowded
commercialism of much of the EXPO, it seemed like an embodiment of good taste. Rather than
a fair pavilion, it resembled an elegant, sparsely furnished art gallery, in which every exhibit
yielded to a dominating Mondrianesque aesthetic of three-dimensional grids, a symphony in
black and white interspersed with occasional splashes of color.13 Indeed, the building itself was
the most successful part of Yugoslav participation at EXPO.14 Architectural Review ranked it
among the six outstanding pavilions at EXPO,15 and the Belgian press described it as a
palace in steel, glass, wood, and marble whose elegance lies in its restraint.16 Gurus of
modernism, such as Alfred Barr Jr. and Jean Cassou of the Paris Museum of Contemporary Art,
praised the pavilion and students of architecture flocked to see it.17 Many visitors and journalists
commented that, in the visual noise of the EXPO, Richters pavilion offered a welcome point of
calm and repose.18 One journalist particularly highlighted the buildings photographic appeal,
noting how it attracted amateur-photographers always in search of good shots.19
The overwhelmingly positive reception of the pavilion was in itself a political message
and an important source of external legitimation for the Yugoslav socialist project. Framed by
13

Symphony in black and white was a description published in the Belgian Communist daily Drapeau Rouge;
quoted in Izvetaj TANJUG-u, May 10, 1958, AJ, Fond 56, Fascikla 24.
14
Reports of officials and hosts of the pavilion are virtually unanimous in such estimates; see: AJ, Fond 56, Fascikla
6.
15
Architectural Review, for example, ranked Richters Pavilion among the six outstanding pavilions at the EXPO;
see: Six Outstanding Pavilions: Jugoslavia, in: Architectural Review 124, no. 739 (August 1958): 116-18.
16
Premire manifestation au pavillon yougoslave, Le Peuple (Brussels), February 4, 1958.
17
See the reports of the pavilion hosts: Izvetaji domaina paviljona, Arhiv Jugoslavije, Belgrade (AJ), Fond 56,
Fascikla 6.
18
See Knjiga utisaka, AJ, Fond 56, Fascikla 26.
19
An article in the Belgian paper Le Peuple described the pavilion as A Miracle of Elegance and Good Taste;
partial translation of the original text in: Izvetaj TANJUG-u, May 10, 1958, AJ, Fond 56, Fascikla 26.

the already existing views of Yugoslav modern art as a symptom of the countrys break from the
Soviet orbit, the design was interpreted in decidedly political terms.20 For example,
transparency, the open ground floor, and the absence of any doors were understood as analogous
to Yugoslavias openness to foreigners, in sharp contrast to the countries behind the Iron Curtain.
Similarly, modesty and restraint indicated a focus on human values instead of megalomaniac
representation, as was the case with the pavilions of the great powers.21 A parallel with Ludwig
Mies van der Rohes 1929 Pavilion of Germany in Barcelona comes to mind here, one of the
iconic buildings of interwar modernism and itself a modernist Gesamtkunstwerk. In either case,
it was the buildings open, free-flowing space, more than anything exhibited inside it, that
couched powerful political messages: of a modern, peaceful, and democratic Weimar Germany,
instead of the conservative war-mongering Wilhelmine Empire; and of a reformed, open, and
modern Yugoslav socialism, liberated from Stalinist oppression.22 In this context, one wonders
if Richters use of cruciform columnssimilar to those in Barcelonarepresented a pure
coincidence, a conscious appropriation, or even a deliberate homage.
The more politicized comments, however, completely eschewed the link between the
pavilions avant-garde aesthetic and the Yugoslav project of self-management, focusing instead
on the Cold War rivalry between the superpowers. On the one hand, many Western
commentators simply retrenched the existing views of Yugoslav modern art as a symptom of the
countrys break from the Soviet orbit. The Belgian daily Le Soir thus enthusiastically
proclaimed, Yugoslavia did in Brussels as it does in its international relations. Parting ways
with the Soviet sector it chose its place next to Portugal, Switzerland, and Great Britain. Next
to its inoffensive friends.23 The truth, however, was that the Yugoslavs had to take what was
offered to them; they originally requested a far more prominent lot at the main plaza, which was
subsequently assigned to the Vatican. However, they were also successful in rejecting the site
next to Franquista Spain. In contrast to Westerners, Soviet visitors objected to the obvious lack
of ideological signs, as well as its aesthetics; as one of the hosts summarized, In most cases,
Russian visitors were dissatisfied Its empty, where are the machines? In the Gallery of Art,
they regularly asked, Is this kind of art close to the people? What was this supposed to say?,
20

About foreign views of Yugoslav architecture, see my essay East? West? Or Both? Foreign interpretations of
Architecture in Socialist Yugoslavia, in: Journal of Architecture 14, no. 1 (2009): 87-105.
21
These were all comments of foreign visitors; see: Izvetaji domaina paviljona.
22
For this interpretation of the Barcelona pavilion, see: Wolf Tegethof, From Obscurity to Maturity: Mies van der
Rohes Breakthrough to Modernism, in: Mies van der Rohe: Critical Essays, edited by Franz Schulze (New York:
The Museum of Modern Art, 1989), 29-94.
23
Le Soir of 14 May, 1958, as reported by TANJUG, 28 June, 1958; AJ, Fond 56, Fascikla 6.

etc. Several times they asked what Bakis Bull [a large semi-abstract sculpture exhibited in
front of the pavilion] was supposed to represent: a pig, a hippopotamus, or an inflated bag?24
The latter criticism obviously reflected the renewed Yugo-Soviet split; just two years after the
relations between the two countries thawed, they became frosty again, largely because the new
Program of the League of Communists stressed the possibility of independent paths to socialism.
The success in Brussels opened the way for Richter to design the following pavilion
without winning it at a competition. This one was at the 1961 International Labor Exhibition,
staged inside Pier-Luigi Nervis newly-opened Palace of Labor in Turin. Here self-management
was placed front and center, the sole theme of the Yugoslav presentation. Different sections
showcased workers councils in action, the distribution of income, associations in economic life,
self-management in communities, cultural results, etc. Richter devised another highly dynamic
space, this time based on the geometry of curvilinear segments that allowed the pavilion to fit
into its irregular lot. The space was covered by semi-transparent zigzagging roofs, which
consisted of hinged radial ribs that could fold flat like an accordion, thus allowing for easy
transport from Zagreb to Turin. The shift in geometry, I suggest, resulted from a radically
thorough reading of the synthesis of the arts that made the installation not only internally
harmonious, but also resonate with Nervis radial mushroom roofs above. At the center of this
socialist Gesamkunstwerk was perhaps the most explicit artistic celebration of self-management
ever produced: a three-dimensional model that allowed visitors to combine and design their own
political systems. Consisting of rotating concentric rings made out of Plexiglas inset into a solid
base, the model was perhaps a distant relative of such avant-garde installations as MoholyNagys Light-Space Modulator, but here combined with the more recent combinatorial logic of
systems theory and cybernetics.
By the time Yugoslavia was invited to participate at the Milan Triennale, the procedure
for staging the pavilion was clearly established. Richter was directly commissioned to
conceptualize the space, while two teams of writers in Belgrade and Zagreb competed for the
script, which focused on self-management. The content they devised was then handed over to
Richter for smooth incorporation into yet another total work of socialist art. In keeping with his
devotion to permanent experiment, the design again explored a new theme. It revealed Richters
emergent fascination with systems theory, which he explored through a series of systemic

24

See: Izvetaji domaina paviljona.

sculptures. At the same time, Richter also became involved with the Zagreb-based international
movement New Tendencies, which several years later would become one of the early hotbeds of
computer art. An early product of such interests, the Milan pavilion consisted of a single
repetitive elementa wooden lath 4x8 cm in sectionmultiplied in three Cartesian directions,
forming an ambiguous space, at the same time repetitive and irregular. The large photographs of
leisure in self-managed communities were cut into vertical strips to match the narrow wooden
pieces, further adding to visual complexity and dynamism, producing a space, as Paolo
Portoghesi put it, full of intimate, delicate vibration.25 Ambiguity, openness, and freedom
dominate the perception of space; as Maroje Mrdulja has argued, An isotopic environment
emerges that uncouples the visual permeability and the permeability of movement and
inhabitation. The pavilion can be freely occupied or colonized with the exhibits allowing the
large photos with the scenes of leisure to float freely in space.26
The montage of structure and images obviously built on the Constructivist tradition,
which, however, was also brought up to date through hybridization with the characteristic themes
of the 1960s. In its combinatorial nature and multiple non-hierarchical paths, Richters design
was in itself an open work, very much in line with Ecos theories. But unlike Eco and
Gregottis phantasmagoric space that completely dematerialized architectural form and tectonics,
open work was here articulated in concise architectural terms. It thus resonated not only with the
theoretical concept of the Italian curators, but also with the many similar contemporaneous
theories derived from systemic and cybernetic logic, for exampleMaroje Mrdulja argued
with Oskar Hansens open form.27
Richters exercise in non-hierarchical spatial and visual organization clearly resonated
with the pavilions theme of leisure, but I would argue that it also revealed his idiosyncratic
interpretation of self-management as an ultimate expression of human freedom. Yet again, the
design stressed the subtle connection between its own avant-garde aesthetics and the avant-garde
status of the Yugoslav system, ultimately winning the Golden Medal of the Triennale, a

25

Paolo Portoghesi, Lanticatalogo della XIII Triennale di Milano, in Architettura; Chronache e storia 10, no.
109 (November 1964): 453.
26
See: Maroje Mrdulja,. Otvorene arikulacije institucija i bitna praksa, Istraivaka arhitektura u Hrvatskoj u
periodu 1953.-1974. unutar konteksta internacionalne interne kritike modernizma, masters thesis (Zagreb:
University of Zagreb, 2011), 52.
27
Mrdulja, Maroje. Otvorene arikulacije institucija i bitna praksa, Istraivaka arhitektura u Hrvatskoj u periodu
1953.-1974. unutar konteksta internacionalne interne kritike modernizma, masters thesis. Zagreb: University of
Zagreb, 2011.

10

remarkable feat in light of the fact that Yugoslavia was the only socialist country in the show and
that its presentation contained explicitly political overtones. Although small, Richters Triennale
pavilion was aesthetically the most radical design with which Yugoslavia ever presented itself
abroad; that something like that would ever be constructed for an official presentation was as
much a testimony to Richters unique artistic vision and his considerable political reputation, as
to his contribution to the sphere of artistic liberties in the previous fifteen years.
The early 1960s were perhaps the most fruitful and imaginative period of Richters
career, during which he published the book Sinturbanizam (synthurbanism), perhaps the most
developed urban utopia ever imagined in Yugoslavia, and also worked on what should have been
the pinnacle of his efforts at representing self-managing socialism, the Museum of the
Revolution of the Nations and National Minorities of Yugoslavia, which was intended to be one
of the centerpieces of New Belgrade, the countrys new socialist capital. Richter won the
competition for the building in 1961, but the construction did not begin until 1978 and, with the
declining power of the Yugoslav federation, it never advanced beyond the basement. If built, the
museum would have been, in some important aspects, a much larger, more monumental, and
somewhat more rigid reinterpretation of the Brussels themes, featuring interlocking exhibition
spaces raised above a transparent ground level. Instead of the central suspension mast, the design
featured dramatic sweeping skylights, another symbolic gesture evoking a sense of revolutionary
triumph and optimism. The buildings abandoned foundations, however, remain as a strangely
appropriate symbol of the failed project of socialist Yugoslavia, tucked away and forgotten under
the overgrown greenery.
Dating from the same period, Richters 1964 book Sinturbanizam (synthetic urbanism)
stands out as the most utopian vision ever produced by Yugoslav architects.28 Following his
earlier attempts at synthesizing the three-dimensional environment into a unified artistic
statement, Richter here took the argument a step further, bringing into consideration the fourth
dimension, time. His synthurbanism proposes a new urban configuration directly opposed to the
analytical logic of modernist urban planning, aiming at the reduction of the enormous amounts of
time wasted in traffic and other unproductive activities in the fractured modern city, the time that
could otherwise be used for work or simply for leisure. Seeking an organized synthesis of life,
synthurbanism seizes upon socialisms perceived potential to generate social harmony:
Socialism-communism is certainly that social movement that, while seeking a harmonious

28

see: Vjenceslav Richter, Sinturbanizam (Zagreb: Mladost, 1964).

11

relationship between the individual and the collective, becomes interested in man as an integral
biological and social being.29
Richters solution to the problems of time waste is to minimize travel by compressing the
city into ziggurats, basic synthurbanist units: pyramidal megastructures, 300 x 300 meters in
plan, each housing 10,000 inhabitants and most of their daily activities. The future city,
according to this vision, would consist of a collection of ziggurats set on a grid of roads, with
parks, common public amenities, and monuments interspersed in between. Each megastructure
reintegrates the segregated zones of CIAM planning: apartment units cascade down its sides,
each with a generous terrace; the ground floor is an enormous open public plaza; and the interior
contains industrial plants, services, and public facilities. Rather than moving production to the
periphery, the ziggurat is equipped with comprehensive filtration systems that reduce industrial
pollution. Politically, each ziggurat functions as a self-contained self-managing community, with
all major decisions made by plebiscite inside a 6,000-seat assembly at the top of the building.
As in all good utopias, there is an edifying dimension to the project aimed at communitybuilding: In a ziggurat, all living functions of the collective occur in front of its membercitizens. From an early age, people see and learn those functions as a part of the collective
organism, thus gaining a sense of belonging and responsibility. At the same time, the
possibilities of self-management appear as a real and tangible political function.30
Richters synthurbanism belonged to the long tradition of utopian urbanism and its
collectivist nature certainly owed to the Soviet avant-garde utopias of the 1920s. At the same
time, it was the exact contemporary of the proposals by Yona Friedman, Japanese Metabolists,
and Archigram, with which it shared several important characteristics: the focus on the problem
of mobility; a technocratic approach to that problem; organicism as the underlying metaphor for
the solution; and megastructure as the specific form of the solution. Despite being extremely well
informed, Richter most likely developed his ideas independently of his foreign peers, since he
began writing the book as early as 1956.31 Moreover, his synthurbanist city stood apart from
those other techno-utopias by reducingrather than increasingmobility. Its static physical
form, more in line with classic utopian cities than with the contemporaneous celebrations of
transience, sought to strengthen community rather than seek freedom from social ties. It was thus

29

Ibid., p. 86.
Ibid., p. 87.
31
Ibid., p. 11.
30

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a logical product of the socialist system that emphasized communal decision-making, rather than
the atomized society of mobile consumers. Soon after publishing the book, however, Richter
moved on to new topicssystemic sculptures, among others, some of them mobileand
never went back to elaborating the principles of synthurbanism, staying true to his own version
of transience: perpetual experimentation and advancement. Synthurbanism thus remained just a
phase in an ever-evolving career, as well as probably the only full-fledged utopia ever imagined
in socialist Yugoslavia.

By the late 1960s, Richters architectural career reached a virtual dead-end, and for the
rest of his life, he would only design several low-profile family homes. Instead, his interests
increasingly shifted towards pure and applied art, as well as theory. His remarkable oeuvre,
particularly his exhibition pavilions, I would argue, revealed a fundamental split in postwar
modernist culture: between the notions of a politically engaged avant-garde, which strives to take
an active role in the transformation of society, and an apolitical autonomous modernism,
which is merely interested in exploring its own aesthetic potential. His activist, avant-garde
ethos was often flattened through the lens of Cold War politics. His allusions to a direct link
between self-management and avant-garde aesthetics were all but apolitical; but they were
generally overlooked and the pavilion was reduced to a mere sign of Yugoslavias independence
from the Soviet Union. This was the same operation that recontextualized much of the modernist
art in the West during the Cold War and allowed such previously socially engaged artists as
Jackson Pollock to be recast as Americas cultural weapons in its struggle to capture the
hearts and minds. Paradoxically, at the same time, Yugoslav political establishment adopted
the ideologically neutral modernism, later dubbed Socialist Aestheticism, as its own herald of
cultural prestige. Despite self-consciously aligning himself with the core ideology of the
Yugoslav socialist system and creating some of its most powerful representations for
international consumption, Richter ultimately stayed outside of the mainstream in his own
country, as he pursued his uncompromising devotion to artistic integrity and perpetual
experimentation.

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